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Private property IS public deprivation.

ORDINARY CITIZEN'S NOTES. 19 JAN 2015. MON. N3.

Private property IS public deprivation.

THE NARRATIVE ABOUT the poor--the Philippine poor included and more so--is an abused one.

It has been used as an alibi for people development that, from the framework of Manila-centric mindset, should be articulated in the Tagalog language of the center. It is like listening to the same old, almost archaic argument about the poor needing the rich, and the rich must be depended upon for the crumbs the poor need all the time.

The forms of iniquities we have got, in the Philippines, in the United States and in other countries I have had the chance to go are the same: the rich hold all the resources and the legal instruments to protect these resources so that the rich will never, not at all, not ever, experience how to be poor.

In the movie "Romero" narrating the activism of the El Salvador Catholic Church that led to the famous sacrifice of Bishop Romero, the facts are clear, and these facts are not different from the Philippines and in the USA: 25% of the rich control 75% of the country's resources, while 75% of the poor control only 25% of the country's resources.

This situation is immoral, and we can only hope Pope Francis saw this ugly face social inequality in the Philippines.

Tony Igcalinos, a scholar on Philippine public policy, has written of this succintly. He cites from a report, and I quote from that report as well. The report, in gist, is saying that this social equality is socially engineered. We all must now begin to take notice of this:

"Very smartly, Oxfam International is raising such questions at the World Economic Forum at Davos, where the global elite gather to talk of big ideas and big money. Oxfam executive director, Winnie Byanyima, is arguing that this increasing concentration of wealth since the recession is “bad for growth and bad for governance”. What’s more, inequality is bad not just for the poor, but for the rich too. That’s why we have the likes of the IMF’s Christine Lagarde kicking off with warnings about rising inequality. Visceral inequality from foodbanks to empty luxury flats is still seen as somehow being in the eye of the beholder by the right – a narrative in which poverty is seen as an innate moral failure of the poor themselves has taken hold. This in turn sustains the idea that rich people deserve their incredible riches. Most wealth, though, is not earned: huge assets, often inherited, simply get bigger not because the individuals who own them are super talented, but because structures are in place to ensure this happens." [Source: https://www.facebook.com/tony.igcalinos?fref=ts. Retrieved 19 Jan 2015, as cited from http://www.theguardian.com/…/inequality-inevitable-1-per-ce….]